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Britain stated on Monday that it has fined Clearview AI Inc of the United States more than £7.5 million ($9.4 million, 8.8 million euros) for amassing internet photographs of people without their knowledge.
The corporation was also ordered by the UK’s data watchdog to stop obtaining personal data of UK citizens available on the internet and to remove data of UK people from its systems.
The action by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) comes after a collaborative investigation with the Australian Information Commissioner’s Office.
Clearview AI Inc maintains a collection of over 20 billion photos of people’s faces taken from the internet and social media platforms without informing the public how their information was obtained.
Customers, including law enforcement, can then upload an image of a person to an app, which searches its database for a match.
“Clearview AI Inc has obtained numerous photographs of people from throughout the world, including the United Kingdom, from a variety of websites and social media platforms, creating a database with more than 20 billion images,” UK Information Commissioner John Edwards revealed.
“The company not only identifies those individuals, but also successfully monitors their behavior and sells it as a commercial service. That is completely inappropriate.”
The ICO determined that Clearview AI Inc violated UK data protection regulations by failing to utilize people’s information in a “fair and transparent” manner and by failing to prevent the data from being held forever.
According to a court document, Clearview AI agreed earlier this month to limit access to its contentious facial recognition database in the United States, settling a complaint launched by privacy advocates.
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